- Michael Campbell (musician and actor)
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- Not to be confounded with the English Michael Campbell (musician) of The Courteeners, or with the American Mike Campbell (musician) of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
- For other people by that name, see Michael Campbell (disambiguation).
The American Michael Campbell started his public career as a singer, songwriter and musician in Detroit. In 1967 with an ephemeral band called 'The Abstract Reality', a 45 rpm single Love Burns Like A Fire Inside was released.[1][2] With Bob 'Babbitt' Kreinar, Ray Monette and Andrew Smith he formed Scorpion (1968-1970 band). His name appears as Mike Campbell on Scorpion (1969 album) and Meat Loaf's debut album Stoney & Meatloaf (1971). For this recording, apart from having cowritten four songs, he played the harmonica on Lady Be Mine.[3][4]
He became an actor by the name Michael Champion and since 1979 played in several TV series, in movies such as History of the World: Part I (1981), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Total Recall (1990) and Toy Soldiers (1991), and video game characters like the terrorist in Flash Traffic: City of Angels (1994) and 'Wolf' in Maximum Surge (1996). Michael Champion composed the music score for the documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High (2007).[5][6]
"Crazy" Mike
Musician and record coproducer Ralph Terrana has been quoted: 'He [Campbell] was a very talented writer. He also could be a little unusual. We called him Crazy Mike.'[4]
A Scorpion band member with whom Campbell wrote also several songs for 'Stoney & Meatloaf', Ray Monette, guitarist of the Rare Earth from 1971 until 2004, communicated about Campbell on a Rare Earth site forum: 'We always called him "Crazy" Mike. He had a reputation for some outlandish behavior. The first day on the set of Total Recall Mike told Arnold to f::k off!! They actually became good friends after that. I guess he [Schwarzenegger] liked someone that would stand up to him for a change.' And: 'It would be hard to forget just about anything that Mike did. The word outrageous is too tame for Mike. Just when you thought you'd seen everything, he'd come out of left field with some stunt that would blow you away. What a mad genius!!'[7]
References
- ^ "Sport Records 104-A (1967 Detroit MI) label & song - side A: 'Love Burns Like A Fire Inside' (A. Williams, R. Monette, M. Campbell), The Abstract Reality". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asUjb8tbU-Y. Retrieved 12 July 2011. (Note: side B: ib. instrumental version)
- ^ "The Soul Discography (Volume 1 A-F)" (pdf). Eyeball Productions, West Vancouver, BC Canada. p. 2. http://www.eyeballproductions.com/media/SD1%20sample%20pages.pdf. Retrieved 12 July 2011.
- ^ "Scorpion (album, band)". BadCat Records, Reston, VA, U.S.A.. http://badcatrecords.com/BadCat/SCORPION.htm. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
- ^ a b Stoney and Meatloaf The Almost Complete Meat Loaf & Jim Steinman Lyric Archive (Retrieved 2 July 2011)
- ^ Michael Champion The Internet Movie Database (Retrieved 2 July 2011)
- ^ Michael Champion Filmography Fandango (Retrieved 2 July 2011)
- ^ RareEarthWorld → Rare Earth Forum → Rare Earth Forum → mike campbell with comments by Rare Earth's Ray Monette, 23 September 2006 (Retrieved 2 July 2011)
Categories:- Living people
- American singer-songwriters
- American actors
- American musicians
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